


inferno

by liminal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1491412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire” (Stars)</p><p>“And if we won’t burn together, I’ll burn alone” (Bret Easton Ellis)</p><p>Steve sets himself on fire because he likes how it feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	inferno

**Author's Note:**

> cap 2 spoilers!! kind of. this is what happens when i see it in the cinema for a fifth time.

Natasha can't imagine how he feels, but she reckons that, for Steve, the first time he lost Bucky was nothing compared to the second. No matter how many sleepless nights he suffered through the first time, she doubts that he has had more than half an hour’s sleep on any night since the second fall. She knows what it is to be undone and unmade, but she at least had a say in going over to S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve’s been blindsided and that must hurt like hell.

Steve can’t drink himself into a stupor, as they all found out after New York, so he spends his nights pounding the pavements around Washington and is still going by the time Sam starts his 6am run. Strip clubs, porn, writing an epic novel, marathoning every series of Star Trek, learning to cook something that isn’t from the 40s - all out of the question. Steve doesn't do diversions unless they have a purpose and as far as Natasha can make out, he's building himself back up physically and mentally by running himself into the ground. 

And if porn is out, then drugs sure as hell are. Steve’s too clean-cut, too much of an All-American boy scout to be tempted, even if his dark cynicism and tunnel vision increase daily.

So Steve runs until he wears through the soles of his trainers, until his shirts are so soaked through with sweat that even long rinse cycles and endless cups of detergent can’t wash the smell out. Nat holds back on the Forrest Gump quips, but only because she knows that when they rented the DVD after the first joke she made landed flat, a single tear sparkled in the corner of the super soldier’s eye at the end.

Steve runs until he’s so dehydrated that the memories fade away, until he’s gone through every track on his iPod and the first one starts playing again, until the number of miles he’s covered hits three digits. 

And then he starts again in the evening.

Natasha does what she can on her brief trips back to Washington when covers and assignments allow. She prompts him into asking Sharon out but knows that Steve’s trust is not easily regained once lost, and it’ll take more than an apology from the pretty blonde for him to start lowering his defences. She asks Clint and Bruce to check up on him, to feign an excuse for passing through. One time, when she sits in Steve’s apartment with a bowl of pasta and a shitty programme on TV and waits a day and a night for him to reappear, she even considers asking Stark to do her a favour, but then decides she isn't that desperate.

And when Steve eventually stumbled in through his front door, drenched and haggard, looking his ninety-five years for the first time since she'd known him, Natasha told him she could have flown to Moscow and back in the time twice he’d been gone, and that there was still some pasta on the stove. They sat in a comfortable silence, bickering occasionally about which home renovation programme to watch until Steve nodded off in his chair, and in sleep he suddenly looked young again.

-

Sam’s approach is more tough love-based, more ‘you betters shift your ass’ than Nat's. Once they’ve finished running for the day and freshened up, he takes Steve to sit at the back of his VA meetings, makes him sit through films Steve missed when he was under and one time, when the vintage Ralph Lauren looks got too much for him to handle, he dragged Steve’s sorry ass to the mall and initiated him into proper modern clothing. 

All of which Steve shoved to the back of his wardrobe when he got home, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

Sam shows Steve the best takeout Chinese in Washington and when there’s a big game on, they sit in Sam’s apartment on leather recliners, with cartons of food and beer bottles littered all over the place. It’s even better when the Yankees play and the two New Yorkers, both far from home, quiz each other on Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig’s stats from way back when, and yell loudly at home runs and strike outs.

But it’s the same old story, even when they’re full to busting on Chinese and the Yankees have won. Steve leaves late at night, offering even while he’s walking away to stay and help clear up, and he’s running laps around the city as soon as he’s back at his and changed. Sam can tell when it’s been a particularly bad night: the ‘on your left’s in the morning are wearied, and few and far between. 

He asked Steve about speaking at a VA meeting once, said it might get things off his mind and not ruin his knees. Said it might give him something to do other than study the dossier Natasha gave him and continue fuelling the global shortage in Nike running gear. Said, in a quiet voice, the one he uses when he’s being real serious, that he knows what it’s like to lose a wingman. Admittedly he doesn’t know and can’t imagine what it’s like to mourn someone, only to find them alive and with the strongest case of cognitive dissonance that Sam’s ever seen, but he knows what loss feels like. And talking can help sometimes, can help you breathe a little easier.

Steve only smiles and says, “maybe some other time.” Sam leaves it at that.

-

The truth is, Steve doesn’t want it any easier. He doesn’t want to forget, to lighten the load, to sleep comfortably in a bed he didn’t pick out for himself. He wants the pain, the raw nerves, the bruised eyes and split lips, the internal agony that fuels his fire. He wants to exorcise his past self, wants to make apologies to people he’ll never talk to again in sweat and blood and pain. 

He wants to say sorry to Bucky for not reaching him and freeing him from Zola earlier. For not reaching further, for not trying harder to grasp his swinging hand, for giving up and believing him dead because it was the only possible explanation. For not following through ‘til the end of the line.

He wants to say sorry to his Howling Commandoes for not sticking it out with them, for not being at weddings and christenings and at boozy bar sessions celebrating V.E. and V.J. Day. He wants to apologise to Falsworth and Morita for not being there at their funerals, to thank Dugan for all he did for S.H.I.E.L.D, to have been there when Jones and Dernier were three sheets to the wind and singing raunchy French songs. He wants to say sorry for dying while they lived.

And Peggy. There’s everything and nothing to say to Peggy, and seeing her face makes Steve think of the years and life and children they could have had together. Her face becoming lined with the years and wisdom, and his never changing. Time passing them by and going too slowly all at once.

-

So he runs and doesn't look back. His body doesn’t tire properly, his muscles don’t burn and seize up, so he judges when to stop by the vibrancy of the memories. When they blur together and fade into reality, he stops and goes back to the place he’s learning to think of as home, when he knows he’ll always just be a kid from Brooklyn. 

He goes to the Smithsonian more often than he should, horrified in part that there’s an exhibition dedicated to him and pleased that he’s got some method of remembering the old world and the old ways. He smiles at the little kids running around with plastic shields, at them being hoisted up by their parents so they can compare their height with his. He smiles most when he sees his pre-serum body and remembers Erskine drinking that whole bottle of schnapps, when he smells the smoke and alcohol that linger on the Commandos’ preserved uniforms, when the newsreels remind him of tiny details he’d forgotten.

The truth is, Steve wants to burn up and burn out because it’s about the only natural thing left to him. When you’re 240lbs of muscle with 3% body fat, a metabolism that runs faster than a Maglev train and you’re 70 years out of time, there isn’t a whole lot to keep you grounded. Punishment and self-flagellation, though, seem to do the trick.

If Bucky - his Bucky, the old Bucky - was here, Steve knows what he’d say. He’d call him a jerk and a punk and say something about being on the ropes and never being able to back away from a fight. 

But he’s not here, and Bucky’s voice is beginning to warp in his memory, and the old jokes don’t sound the same. So Steve punishes himself in his best friend’s absence. He sets himself on fire because he likes how it feels.


End file.
